A child’s view of Ramadan

WE call this month
the month that we are all “the guests of God”: the doors of God open to everyone to come find mercy [forgiveness and not punishment; love and not hate]. So we also call this month, “God’s Mercy Month of Plenty”. It is the month that God gave the Prophet Mohamad the Holy Koran. During Ramadan, we try to make our hearts clean. This month we should be careful about all things. We should not say lies. We should not do bad things to other people. We should not even look at them with mean or unkind eyes. It is a way to start a new life of doing good. During
Ramadan we fast. It means we do not eat or drink from sunrise to
sunset. We will be
hungry and we will be thirsty so that we will understand better the
suffering of
poor people. We understand how hard a life they have, so that during this
time we help them. We also remember our friends who died and we ask God to forgive their wrongs.

At the end of Ramadan we have Eid.
When it is Eid everyone is happy—and sad too. We are happy
because it is Eid and we worked hard to be free from bad
things and we have more peace with others who we were not happy
with. But we are sad because
Ramadan is over. One day before Eid people cook special things and we take them to our neighbors. We also remember the poor people and take food to them. From
every home one small child will bring something to us and we will take
food we cook to other houses. Our plates will be
full from giving and from getting. When we give food we say, “May God
forgive all who have died and all living people.”

There is one more thing I want to say. There are three nights near the end of Ramadan when all families go to the mosque and pray all night. They do not sleep. They pray all night. If there are people who cannot go, then they pray all night in their homes. So to end, I want to say that Ramadan is the best month. It has so many benefits. — Frozan

—Frozan speaks Dari, Pashto and English. She studies at SOLA, School of Leadership in Afghanistan. She dreams of being an astronaut. “At night I talk to the stars. I tell them my dreams. They are my best friends. I want to be an astronaut because I want to know with whom I am speaking.”